Zombie Typomaniac Review

Get your typing on with the newest Tagstar Publishing game, Zombie Typomaniac. The iOS version of your high school keyboard class turns typing from a mundane communicative necessity into a fun, competitive way for survival. Can typing really be turned into a fun game, or does Zombie Typomaniac just feel like homework?

Taking notes from the bizarre (and bizarrely fun), Typing of the Dead, Zombie Typomaniac arms you with a (virtual) keyboard as a weapon against the rising tide of undead. The story is that Spookville, Oregon is experiencing some high levels of undead activity, and the player must put their typing skills to the test to shoot them down. Players get to choose between two characters, one of each gender, before immediately getting thrown into the midst of the zombie horde. As zombies fill the screen, they each have a letter, word, or series of letters above their head, like a thought bubble, and the player has to type that word to fight them. For example, one zombie might have the word “brains” above their head. When you type out “brains” correctly, your character targets that zombie and blows their brains all over the place.

The difficulty changes to match the player’s skill level, calculating the words per minute you type during each level and sending increasing (or decreasing), numbers of zombies at you later, keeping things nicely challenging without veering into Battletoads level of difficulty. And, if you find that you can’t beat a level after a few tries, Zombie Typomaniac offers to lower the difficulty. Even so, there is a bar of easiness it won’t go below, so don’t expect to keep lowering the difficulty until there are only three zombies onscreen at one time. In addition to the zombie-shooting action, there are occasional helpful bonuses that drop onscreen, adding a nice bit of spice to the proceedings. Sometimes you’ll get a health pack, and other times you’ll get a special weapon like dynamite, silver bullets, or scatter shot. To activate these, you have to type the word above the item -- but be quick! The power-ups disappear if you dawdle for too long.

Zombie Typomaniac offers a nice number of options for players to choose from. There are two game modes, the first of which being campaign, which consists of 28 levels, and survival, which lasts as long as you still draw breath and keep typing. There are several different background settings to choose from, and outfits to dress your zombie killers in. The outfits must be purchased with zombie bucks, and though it will take some time to accumulate enough cashola to get what you want, you acquire currency at a decent enough rate so that you won’t be 90 years old by the time you unlock everything.

All in all, Zombie Typomaniac is a solid title. The typing can get a bit tiring and cumbersome, and you’ll likely long for the satisfying clack of a real keyboard, but the gameplay is fun and unusual, and features America’s favorite hobby -- zombie killing!